Windows 8 Won't Boot

[AbidingDude]

So for whatever reason, my wife's computer won't boot up. It gets as far as the windows logo screen (the blue, angled Windows logo with the circle-of-dots spinning below), then the screen goes black. But, if I move the mouse the pointer appears, just on a black screen.

I tried putting in the original install disk. So far none of those options help. I tried repair, but it said the Windows dick was locked. I tried System Restore, but all it gave me was an error message saying to choose a restore point, but never actually presented me with any restore points.

Now I'm trying the Command Prompt. In this command prompt session, it assigns the drive letter 'X' to the DVD, and it seems to assign her hard drive to 'E'. Is that something that is done for only this command prompt session? Or did the drive letters get messed up?

 

[rclarke250]

just that session, drive letters will revert to whatever they were if you can get windows to boot again. Link Link is to a youtube video to fix a black screen with cursor issue, he covers it pretty good, faster than I can type out each step.

 

[DrB0b]

I have seen the black screen cursor issue a couple of times but each time on my end, after waiting with that screen for 30 min to an hour it would finally load Windows. Not sure how long you are letting it "think" on the black screen but you may want to let it sit overnight and see if it remedies itself. If not, as said above there are a few black screen fixes out there that we can point you to.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[AbidingDude]

just that session, drive letters will revert to whatever they were if you can get windows to boot again. Link Link is to a youtube video to fix a black screen with cursor issue, he covers it pretty good, faster than I can type out each step.

That was an interesting video. Unfortunately it didn't help. My wife's computer has a fairly new SSD.

I have seen the black screen cursor issue a couple of times but each time on my end, after waiting with that screen for 30 min to an hour it would finally load Windows. Not sure how long you are letting it "think" on the black screen but you may want to let it sit overnight and see if it remedies itself. If not, as said above there are a few black screen fixes out there that we can point you to.

I didn't let it sit overnight. Perhaps I should have. But I did let it sit for at least two hours.

I ended up doing a "Windows Refresh" (I think that's what it was called anyway), where it keeps all files but removes all third party applications. Not my favorite thing to do seeing as I had to reinstall a bunch of stuff, but at least it's back up now.